Cost-recovery claims
Costs That MayBe Recovered
A cost-recovery claim may include expenses such as:
A cost-recovery claim may include expenses such as:
- Environmental investigation and sampling
- Consultants and technical experts
- AFFF replacement and system transition
- Decontamination and disposal
- Groundwater, stormwater, and soil response
- Remediation, treatment, and monitoring
Recoverable categories depend on the facts, the client’s costs, and applicable law.
AFFF litigation
Coordinated litigation is pending
Litigation is pending in federal and state courts to recover damages and remediate contaminated sites. The majority of cases are filed in federal court. The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation determined that the AFFF cases filed involved common questions of law and fact such that centralization of the cases was appropriate.
Weighing a number of factors, the Judicial Panel selected the District of South Carolina as the forum for this litigation. These cases have been assigned to the Honorable Richard M. Gergel for coordinated discovery and pretrial matters. This multidistrict litigation is currently comprised of approximately five hundred cases pending before this Court.
These cases all involve varied causes of action and claims relating to per- or polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).
Plaintiffs generally allege that aqueous film-forming foams (AFFFs) containing perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and/or perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), two types of PFAS, contaminated groundwater near various military bases, airports, and other industrial sites where AFFFs were used to extinguish liquid fuel fires.